HOW do you shuffle yours? A riffle, an overhand shuffle a cut for luck? Apparently it can make a big difference and this is not the opinion of casino regulars but two mathematicians from Oxford University.

Father and son team, Nick and Lloyd Trefethan found that to ensure a pack is random before the start of a game, the cards must be shuffled five times using the riffle method. This is when the pack is cut and interweaved at the edges. If the dealer uses the shuffle method where the top of the pack is dropped to the back, it will take 2,700 shuffles.

Someone had better tell the casinos - the two claim that few casinos shuffled their cards fully. Now they've worked out how to make shuffling fair and even, perhaps they could come up with a foolproof betting strategy?